A really good return on UK dogs, two sharp moves not due to errors.
The Aus markets continued to produce errors. This is now down to Gruss not handling a known API error. At least 11 errors on this chart but with a fix on the way these could be becoming a rare event, I’m hoping.
The problem starts with the Aus API failing to reply to a call and then Gruss gets a bit stuck, trying endlessly to get a reply. The guys at Gruss may be able to provide a fix as Betfair appear to be away from the desk with this one.
A user on the Gruss forum has reported testing alongside BA and not had the errors replicated. This should mean that the error can be ignored. I’m hoping it is fixed soon as I’m seeing more errors by the day.
This should motivate me to get on and complete my own bot…
The Aus trading has experienced some errors lately (see chart, they’re the sharp jumps up and down) which I put down to my underwhelming internet connection. However, I was reading some posts over at Gruss and there might be another explanation. This post talks about an issue with the Aus API where bets are not updated in real time (if you log into the Gruss forum there’s an acknowledgement of this error in the Bug Reports section). The errors that I have looked at occur close to the off which would make sense if the bet status is delayed whilst my bot is greening; it’s calculating on incorrect data. I could stop trading further out but I don’t really want to as some markets only start getting active in the last few minutes. I’ll employ the ‘wait and see’ approach to this problem.
Here are the charts for the previous 4 weeks.
The UK dogs performed below its recent average of 0.061% but with no errors being recorded, this is ok.
The Aus markets returned nearly double the recent average but the errors are obvious. Interestingly, if the errors are removed the end result isn’t much different. This could be an example of the random nature of the errors and has a nil impact over the long term. Still, I’d rather the errors didn’t occur.
I’ve spent the last two weeks working every hour, with little time for anything else. Starting early and finishing late is not what I want to be doing but that’s the joy of self employment; the workflow is too much or too little but never steady. I’ve also started working towards a new qualification to upskill and enable me to get a ‘normal’ job, giving me more time for family and hobbies (trading).
The bot is still running OK, the only thing I’ve done with it recently is restart after Betfair maintenance. I really like the fact that even though I’m busy and not thinking about trading, the bot is working away regardless.
The next week or two will see similar levels of work for me, what joy, so probably won’t be doing any coding but will do a recent chart if I get chance.
I received an email from Betfair warning me that I now qualify for the aus turnover charge. It’s explained in their help pages but basically comes down to paying 1.2% on the aggregate of all back bets on qualifying markets, win or lose, once total is over aus$2000. It’s more than my profit so I can’t continue as is. Rules are rules.
I can still participate but keeping track of the matched back bets for a week is causing some brain ache. Also not sure at the moment how to accurately identify turnover markets as not all aus races qualify. I think.
As this has just happened, I could temporarily adjust my stake to £2 to reduce my overall turnover whilst i modify my bot but it isn’t a guarantee of avoiding the charge. And I’ve used my grace week so no more warnings, if I owe it I pay it (on a Wednesday like the premium charge but without the success).
An overall good week. UK dogs made a good return with 0.084%. Looking at the chart, the sharp drop early in the results was on one runner in a very active market – 46 settled bets in less than 3 minutes. Of those, three backs were placed around 5.8, followed by a fast drift against which my bot chased and partially matched at 6.2 and 7.5, then finished on 8.
The Aus chart looks good but holds a warning. The two big wins were due to errors. The first was a Lay placed when there shouldn’t have been. The log shows a Lay placed with no Fill/Kill or Tick Offset. My bot only places these during greening so I can only think a matched bet was showing as unmatched and then changed afterwards, as my records show all as matched.
The second was a Lay placed 15 seconds after the start time. This should not be possible as my bot jumps to next race at -1 second. I can only assume that the connection was hanging and this had an effect.
I think it’s safe to say that after a number of errors recently that have left me with a profit, I will soon experience a loss from an error. As they tend to be Lay errors, I assume the loss will be large.
As requested by Betfair Pro Trader, here are some charts.
The first is the best continuous data I could get together, covering over 6000 UK greyhound markets from 28th September 2015 to 31st January 2016. This covers a lot of changes with the settings and even trading rules such as allowing multiple open bets on one runner. (Ignore chart title, it is from 28th September)
I have mentioned before that the AUS horses ran a lot tighter on the settings and that early in January I changed the UK dogs to the same limits. So below is the period 3rd to 31st January, cut from the above chart. This period saw an increase greater than 1.5 times the previous 2 periods combined. So far this confirms the settings are now more beneficial despite my concern they may have had a negative impact on activity.
Another week and the swing from Aus to UK being more profitable has continued. The UK chart is very pleasing on the eye. The Aus chart not so. Another day was missed, Wednesday, which is quite a busy day on the Aus horses judging by the number of tweets I get from @Betfair_Aus. Apparently this is due to missing info from the Aus API when market refresh is triggered in Gruss. I must get round to adding more code to try and prevent this. The large loss was another one of those things, no errors or missed bets, just quite a few losing trades in a row on one market.
With reference to my last post about costs, Januray’s P&L was £32.97 pre costs and £17.87 after. So I achieved my goal of not being a loser.
I’ve been monitoring my computers energy use since October and on average it costs £9.10 per month to run (this includes UPS). Added to the Gruss subscription, that’s £15.10. I’ve looked into putting it on a virtual server (VPS) but it’s a bit costly at the moment. Although monthly fees for a windows setup can be found for less than £9, adding Office to be able to use Excel pushes the price up.
When my own bot is running OK, I should be able to move to a VPS, reducing my costs. There are other benefits to this, such as faster connection and better up time. Also being able to access from anywhere would be good. I could access my own computer remotely but I’m sure that would interfere with the bot’s response time. Anything I do seems to effect it, even sending a small file causes Gruss to pause.
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